The Danish Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe commented on the Hedegaard case and was himself charged with “racism”. While preparing his defense, he was also told by the court that “defendants in cases brought under Article 266b are denied the right to prove their case”.

Oh.

That’s why these are heresy trials, and only the first of many. The prosecutors think Hedegaard, Langballe, Wilders, Mrs Sabbaditsch-Wolff et al are apostates from the new state religion of multiculturalism. Thuggish Muslim lobby groups, on the other hand, consider them heretics against Islam. In practice, it makes little difference, and multiculturalism is merely an interim phase, a once useful cover for an Islamic imperialism so confident it now barely needs one. The good news is that European prosecutors are doing such a grand job with their pilot program of show trials you’ll hardly notice the difference when sharia is formally instituted.

The cartoon riots were a trick, perpetrated by unscrupulous imams and their backers, for the purpose of intimidating the West into adapting Islamist codes of speech policing, and for the purpose of generating fear and loathing of the West up and down that fabled Islamic street. It all worked quite well, thanks in no small part to the Western media’s cowardly behavior throughout.

Now, to the incriminating doc concerning Syria. At the time of the riots, it was fairly obvious that various and sundry despots around the Middle East were using the Danish cartoon controversy for their own ends. Syria’s hands were bloody, as they tend to be in any crisis.
…
Here’s where the real taqiyya comes into play:

(C) xxxxxxx assessed that the SARG allowed the rioting to continue for an extended period and then, when it felt that “the message had been delivered,” it reacted with serious threats of force to stop it. He described the message to the U.S. and the broader international community as follows: “This is what you will have if we allow true democracy and allow Islamists to rule.” To the Islamic street all over the region, the message was that the SARG is protecting the dignity of Islam, and that the SARG is allowing Muslims freedom on the streets of Damascus they are not allowed on the streets of Cairo, Amman, or Tunis.

Notice the dual messages. To the West, the riots were orchestrated and intended to send the West a message: Leave us despots alone or you’ll get nothing but chaos. The Syrian Ba’ath Party had every incentive to send that particular message to a United States that had just toppled the neighboring Ba’ath dictatorship in Iraq. Assad didn’t want to end up like Saddam. To those who embodied the chaos, the rioters themselves, Assad sent a different message: We, the secular Syrian government, are your guardians from those nasties in the West. Trust us to keep Islam pure.

Go read the rest of the article, while bearing in mind that the cartoonists are living in hiding.

“Controversial” but entirely vindicated by events since. To return to the theme of my post a couple of days back, a significant percentage of Muslims in the west do not understand concepts such as pluralism and freedom of expression. A further percentage understand them very well but reject them as loser fetishes incompatible with the requirements of Islamic supremacism – and have a shrewd sense that when, push comes to shove, a lot of these fine liberal concepts crumble to nothing. Is the percentage of Muslims who support Mr Westergaard’s right to free expression and the broader principles of intellectual liberty sufficient to make the importation of legions of “27-year old Somalians” a net benefit to Denmark?

The answer to that seems obvious. But Mr Westergaard is 74, and I’ll bet his half-century-younger attacker grasps however crudely the demographic symbolism, in Scandinavia and beyond.

UPDATENoticias 24 reports that Westergaard was at home with his five year old grandson granddaughter. Noticias 24 also has a photo of the police standing in front of Westergaard’s house after the incident:

I wish Jake would have linked to my post particularly since I specifically request it because this is a professional translation, but looking at the bright side, the subtitled YouTube has had over 11,000 viewings – so I appreciate that he picked up the YouTube.

I’ll be talking about this and other news in today’s podcast at 11AM. The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean will be up later this afternoon.

Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plan to address negotiators at international climate talks in Copenhagen next week.

The three leaders are listed in a line-up of more than 180 government officials published in a United Nations schedule of speakers. Each head of state will have up to three minutes to address roughly 700 delegates, reporter, observers and civil society groups.

Among the brilliance shared by Gore is this (not sure what to call it),

The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools

Vanity Fair asks “Is Gore himself that shepherd?” He probably sees himself as the sheperd who will lead us like meek sheep to the promised land, along with the help of countless media tools like Vanity Fair, and other ones like the people who awarded him the Nobel Prize, and the hardcore believers who don’t want us to breathe because we exhale CO2.

the only thing certain about the EPA ruling is more regulatory uncertainty leading to less economic growth and fewer jobs. Bad news, to be sure, for American businesses already flummoxed by the mercurial state of healthcare, financial and tax reform. Call it Obama’s Uncertainty Tax.

While a cap-and-trade bill has already passed the House of Representatives, few Capitol Hill observers expected the Senate to approve one, even by the end of 2010 thanks to the anemic economy and political risks for incumbent Democrats facing midterm elections. What’s more, expectations of a more Republican-leaning congress after 2010 made it seem like economy-wide carbon caps were sliding off the Obama agenda for the foreseeable future.

But now it’s conceivable carbon restrictions would be implemented as early as next year – even though the EPA itself admits its efforts would be more disruptive and less efficient than congressional action. Such an optimistic timetable assumes no legal challenges. But there will be plenty of those. Already, business groups are preparing to file suit against the EPA. It could fall to U.S. courts to determine the future of the nation’s approach to climate policy. This is a nightmare scenario for the private sector when it comes to planning for new expansion or hiring. Note that the big problem with the job market at the moment is not so much job losses and zippo new jobs being created. It will take a year of 4 percent growth adding 250,000 jobs a month to lower the unemployment rate to 9 percent.

Of course, about the only thing worse than regulatory uncertainty would be for the EPA to follow through with its top-down, command-and-control approach to dealing with perceived climate change.

None of this is surprising. The global climate change industry is all about shaking the dollars and cents out of our pockets. From Al Gore’s profiteering off of the hysteria he has created, to the large corporate interests involved in selling “green” as a marketing tool, to researchers willing to stifle debate and tamper with data so as to justify funding, to an internationalist movement interested in transfer of wealth as a social policy, the global climate change debate is all about showing the money.

The “show me the money” line is from the movie Jerry Maguire, about a desperate sports agent willing to do anything. So fitting that the UN climate change guru now uses such a crass phrase

Perhaps the UN guy’s been reading Shakespeare, where Iago, one of the great villains, says,

According to the organisers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants’ travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of “carbon dioxide equivalent”, equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of Middlesbrough.

As it turns out there aren’t enough limos on Denmark to meet demand, so they’re bringing them from Germany and Sweden:

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. “We haven’t got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand,” she says. “We’re having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden.”

And why bother flying coach?

The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.

Looks like the Swedes are having a sweet time from all this, but the hotels in Copenhagen are loving it,

The top hotels – all fully booked at £650 a night – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges.

I’m curious at how does one sculpt caviar, but I digress.

Ironically, about the only ones who won’t be rolling in dough are the whores,

the local sex workers’ union – they have unions here – has announced that all its 1,400 members will give free intercourse to anyone with a climate conference delegate’s pass. The term “carbon dating” just took on an entirely new meaning.

Gilligan says

At least the sex will be C02-neutral

but he forgets that humans emit CO2, particularly from all that heavy breathing.

One of the problems facing the negotiators at Copenhagen is what to do with the mountain of carbon credits that Russia threatens to put on the market. In a news report late last month, the Washington Post noted that under the formula reached under the Kyoto Protocol, “Russia is expected to post the largest absolute drop in emissions from 1990 levels of any of the countries that signed the treaty. But the decline is almost entirely the result of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet economy rather than environmental measures by the government. Critics say Moscow doesn’t deserve to keep its carbon credits because it didn’t earn them with any special effort. ” The West could retrospectively compensate the Russians for the collapse of the Soviet economy.

How else to face this? Borrowing!

“Borrow to the hilt to stop global warming, says Lord Stern”,

Imagine that. A global warming dyed in the wool believer thinks borrowing to the hilt is a good idea.

In the meantime, China, India, Brazil and South Africa are not going along with the recommendation to cut emissions. I’m willing to bet that their whores remain honest and insist on demanding cold hard cash, too.

Al won’t be going to the conference. Maybe he’s contemplating going into the conference limo rental business, if only to leverage himself from the possible loss in the carbon-credit business.

On Friday, the Obama administration announced a startling shift in plans: rather than stop by the Copenhagen climate talks on Dec. 9, Obama will be going on the 18th, the final day of the meeting—a notable increase in commitment (and political exposure) from the administration.

The first week of every COP meeting consists of posturing, speeches, protests, and NGO reports. Everything of significance to the treaty is announced late in the meetings, often on the last day, after a flurry of last-minute negotiations. Coming to Copenhagen at the climax of the talks, specifically to push negotiations “over the top,” as the White House statement says, is a risky move for Obama. He’s got skin in the game now; he’ll look foolish if he rides in at the last minute and fails to broker an agreement.

If he’s willing to stick his neck out like this, Obama must be pretty confident that he can get a deal.

Weren’t they saying that when Obama went to Copenhagen to get the Olympics for Chicago? How did that work out?